RESEARCH ARTICLE The essential and downstream common proteins of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A protein-protein interaction network analysis Yimin Mao1,2☯, Su-Wei Kuo2☯, Le Chen1, C. J. Heckman2,3,4, M. C. Jiang2* 1 Applied Science Institute, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Jiangxi, China, 2 Department of Physiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, 3 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, 4 Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, a1111111111 Illinois, United States of America a1111111111 a1111111111 ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 Abstract Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a devastative neurodegenerative disease character- OPEN ACCESS ized by selective loss of motoneurons. While several breakthroughs have been made in Citation: Mao Y, Kuo S-W, Chen L, Heckman CJ, identifying ALS genetic defects, the detailed molecular mechanisms are still unclear. These Jiang MC (2017) The essential and downstream genetic defects involve in numerous biological processes, which converge to a common common proteins of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A protein-protein interaction network analysis. destiny: motoneuron degeneration. In addition, the common comorbid Frontotemporal PLoS ONE 12(3): e0172246. doi:10.1371/journal. Dementia (FTD) further complicates the investigation of ALS etiology. In this study, we pone.0172246 aimed to explore the protein-protein interaction network built on known ALS-causative Editor: Weidong Le, Institute of Health Science, genes to identify essential proteins and common downstream proteins between classical CHINA ALS and ALS+FTD (classical ALS + ALS/FTD) groups. The results suggest that classical Received: October 30, 2016 ALS and ALS+FTD share similar essential protein set (VCP, FUS, TDP-43 and hnRNPA1) Accepted: February 1, 2017 but have distinctive functional enrichment profiles.